Whisper room, p.6
Whisper Room, page 6
She sat back as the blood drained from her face. Then she stared down at the floor. When she spoke again, it was barely a whisper. “Oh, my God. Mindy Getz. Mindy Getz has that tattoo.”
Chapter Nine
As I sat in my car in the guest parking section of the townhome complex, I looked up Mindy Getz on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. She was a serial social media user. She’d put up online pictures of fancy restaurants and expensive meals she’d ordered. There were selfies of her outside Broadway theaters, on trips she’d taken to places like Key West and Atlanta, and of her skiing in Vermont and hiking in the Grand Canyon.
The selfies showed that she had long golden hair, blue-gray eyes, and was a pretty twenty-something. According to her profile, Mindy had gone to Columbia to study philosophy, and her current occupation was in the field of hospitality.
The one striking missing item in her vast array of photographs was that she’d never snapped a picture of any of her clients.
Or at least she never posted them online.
Interestingly, she had posted a few photos of herself and a young man with their arms around each other. He didn’t appear to fit the profile of a Whisper Room client. He was in his early twenties, clearly needed a haircut, and was dressed in a Glass Animals-Dreamland Tour T-shirt and cargo shorts. In the photo, she was looking directly into the camera, and he was gazing lovingly at her. They appeared to be standing in front of a green Saturn.
Do they even make those anymore?
I glanced back at Unit 5B. When I’d left, Stephanie Cumberland was bereft. Tears flowing, nose running, sobbing uncontrollably in Lorna Thorne’s arms. Lorna swore that if Matt Boca had anything to do with Mindy’s death, she’d tear his heart out herself with her bare hands.
I was pretty sure she could do it.
I was able to get Mindy Getz’s address in an online search, but before I set off, I called home to make sure Caroline was okay. She told me that she was fine, and took the opportunity to remind me that I’d promised she could practice driving this weekend.
Persistent teenager.
After disconnecting the call, I sat for a moment gazing out over the cove where houselights were reflecting like lazy eels on the surface of the water. I thought about Mindy Getz and Caroline and that they had similar features—blond hair and blue eyes.
And so did that girl in the sex video with Elliot Carlson.
I shook my head. I’d never let Caroline be put into a position where she would have to trade sex for money. But to hear Stephanie and Lorna tell it, no one had forced or coerced their employees into becoming escorts. They all did it of their own volition.
I sighed and thought of Mike Dillon. He didn’t know the identity of his Jane Doe. I did.
I suffered a moment of conscience. Part of me knew the right thing to do was to call Mike Dillon and tell him who his Jane Doe was and how I got the information.
The other part of me wanted to get out in front of this story as far as I could. Having the police diving in would just slow me down.
Conscience be damned. I hit the Start button on the dash.
***
Mindy’s condo was in a working-class section of Sheffield. Strawberry Woods Apartments were on Wolfpit Avenue, tucked behind a Stew Leonard’s grocery story on Route 1. Streetlights offered enough illumination to see that there were five condos to a building and there were five buildings in the complex. Each condo was two stories, had a tiny front lawn, and shrubbery nestled against the foundation.
I knew that Mindy Getz lived in 4C. The windows to her condo were dark. The parking area marked with her condominium number was empty.
I pulled into it and sat for a moment, studying her unit. It was obvious that no one was home.
No, the owner is in the morgue.
An incredible sadness washed over me. Nobody knew she was dead. According to what I’d found online, both of her parents were alive and living in New Jersey. They were completely unaware that their daughter had been murdered.
Certain that I’d made the drive to Mindy’s for nothing, I got out of my car anyway, walked up the sidewalk, and knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
I knocked one more time, more emphatically. No dog barked, no roommate or boyfriend came to the door.
The front door of the unit next to Mindy’s opened and a tall, thin Black man leaned out. “Are you looking for Mindy?” His voice had a distinct British accent.
“Yes, I am. Do you know where she is?” I asked the question knowing full well that he had no clue where she was.
He stepped out of his condominium and crossed over the postage stamp–sized yard to where I stood. “She sometimes goes away for days at a time. Mindy has some kind of job in the hospitality business. Sometimes it takes her into the city, and sometimes she goes away on some lovely trips. But you probably know that already, don’t you?”
He was eyeballing me, a curious expression on his face. The man was fishing. I reached out to shake his hand. “My name is Geneva Chase.”
He smiled. “Charles Odom. Why are you looking for Mindy?” He was wearing a dark-green sweater, jeans, and house slippers. His dark hair was turning silver around his temples, and his large hand was warm and dry as it gripped mine.
I pulled a card out of my bag and handed it to him. “I’m a research analyst with Lodestar Analytics. Mindy is part of a survey I’m doing on the hospitality business.”
I hated to lie to a man I had just met, but I couldn’t tell him that I was a reporter looking into his neighbor’s murder. I asked, “How well do you know Mindy Getz?” I was careful not to use the past tense.
He glanced at Mindy’s front door. “You know, we’re neighbors. We say hello to each other when we run into each other in the parking lot. When she goes on her trips, I collect her mail for her and feed her fish. She has a lovely aquarium.”
“So, you have a key to her condo?”
He gave me a curious look. “Yes.”
For the briefest of moments, I thought about asking Charles Odom to let me into Mindy’s home to look around. Then I considered that her condo could very well be the place she was killed. If I went in there, I’d contaminate a possible crime scene.
The last thing I needed to do was leave my fingerprints or DNA in her condo.
“When did you last see her?”
He studied me with suspicion. “Yesterday afternoon. I was just coming back from the gym, and she was just coming home from grocery shopping. Why do you ask?”
“I was supposed to meet her last evening for the survey, and she didn’t show up.”
Lies upon lies.
He squinted at me. “I was given the impression she was going out on a date last night.”
“I think she mentioned that she has a boyfriend. Do you know if she was going on a date with him?”
Charles chuckled. “Oh, she has a boy she sees off and on. Mostly off, I think. Mindy’s a pretty girl. She likes to play the field. Mindy loves to tell me about some of the dates she goes on. And of course, I’m friends with her online. So, I get to see pictures of some of the fabulous restaurants she dines at. And the trips she takes.”
I had the feeling that Charles Odom knew more about Mindy than he was letting on. “Does she ever talk about who she’s going out with?”
He shook his head. “No, she keeps those cards pretty close to the vest, you know what I mean?”
“Discreet.”
“Got to give her credit for that. Doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“Do you know any of Mindy’s friends?”
Charles glanced at the next building over and nodded toward it. “Kristin in 2B. They’re about the same age. Both nice girls.”
I followed his line of sight. “Do you suppose she’s home?”
“Her car’s been gone for about a week now. I’m guessing she’s on one of her vacations.”
“Does she take a lot of them?”
Charles gave me a sly grin. “Both Mindy and Kristin travel a lot.”
Mr. Odom knows more about their profession than he lets on.
Suddenly something caught Charles’s eye. He squinted into the night, staring at a car parked in the shadows next to the dumpster. “That’s odd.”
“What’s that, Mr. Odom?”
“That car. It was parked there a couple of nights ago. When I took out the trash, I must have made whoever was in it nervous, because the driver left in a huff.”
I could just make out a vehicle sitting next to a dumpster that serviced the complex. I asked, “No idea who it belongs to?”
He slowly shook his head. “Didn’t get a good look at it, sitting in the shadows like that. I’m going to call the head of our HOA, though. I don’t like strangers hanging about.” Then he focused on me again. “Sorry Mindy isn’t here. Would you like me to tell her you were looking for her?”
I was still staring into the dark, trying to get more detail on the car that shouldn’t have been there. “Sure.”
He went back into his apartment, and I started in the direction of the mysterious vehicle. Before I’d gotten more than a couple of steps, the car headlights came to life, momentarily blinding me. Then it pulled out of its spot and drove quickly across the dark parking lot, only emerging into the light as it got to the road.
A Saturn?
Was that Mindy’s on-again off-again boyfriend?
Could he be Mindy’s killer?
Yes, I know the old trope about the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. But I’ve been on the crime beat for a long time and know that’s rarely the case.
No, he’s looking for Mindy Getz. He doesn’t know she’s dead.
Chapter Ten
While I microwaved the plate of sesame chicken, fried rice, and a single dumpling Caroline had left me, I took a deep breath and punched in Mike’s personal cell phone number. I wasn’t looking forward to this call, but it was something I had to do if I wanted to look myself in the mirror again.
Driving home I had thought again about how Mindy’s parents didn’t have any idea where their daughter was. If something happened to Caroline, I couldn’t stand not knowing.
Mike caught my call on the third ring. “Genie?”
“Hi, Mike. Look, I have some news, and you’re going to want to ask me a lot of questions, but I’m not going to be able to give you a lot of answers.”
Mike hesitated and the microwave dinged, telling me that my food was hot. As I opened the door and took out the steaming plate, he said, “Okay, tell me.”
I placed my plate on the kitchen table. Tucker stared at me with hopeful brown eyes from his place next to my chair. “Your Jane Doe’s name is Mindy Getz.”
“And you know this how?”
“She was an escort, working for The Whisper Room.”
I could visualize him opening his tiny notebook he carried everywhere and jotting down the girl’s name. “The same escort service that blackmailed Elliot Carlson?”
I sat down at the table and sipped some water before answering. “It’s the same escort service, but the owner of the service claims they weren’t the ones who blackmailed Carlson.”
“You know who the owner of The Whisper Room is?”
“Yes.” I cut into the dumpling and popped it into my mouth.
“Are you going to tell me who it is?”
I finished chewing and swallowed. “Can’t reveal a source.”
I heard the anger in his voice. “You know that pisses me off.”
“I feel the same way when someone tells me their statement is off the record.” I took a bite of the chicken and chewed while he stewed.
Finally, Mike asked, “Did this pimp tell you if Mindy Getz was working last night?”
It was weird. Like Mike, when I’d started looking into The Whisper Room, I thought of the owner as a pimp.
But after meeting them, I didn’t think of Stephanie Cumberland and Lorna Thorne in the same way. They were attractive, bright, erudite businesswomen. Their employees were college educated. Working as escorts was their conscious decision. The girls weren’t being trafficked. They weren’t being physically or mentally coerced. They went out on expensive “dates” with wealthy men.
But the two women were promoting prostitution.
“The owner said that Mindy Getz wasn’t working for The Whisper Room last night. However, the owner also told me that from time to time, against their advice, their employees work freelance.”
Mike thought for a moment, giving me an opportunity to shovel in a forkful of fried rice. I noticed Caroline leaning against the doorway leading from the living room into the kitchen. I winked at her.
“I need to get a list of clients from The Whisper Room and find out where they all were last night.”
I thought I’d try to change the subject. “Was an autopsy done on the girl?”
“Do you really think I should tell you anything?” No question, he was angry.
I sighed. “Mike, I just told you who the Jane Doe is. C’mon. You’ll be releasing the autopsy results in the morning anyway.”
Caroline came into the kitchen and sat down at the table with me. She reached down and scratched Tucker behind the ears.
“The victim was asphyxiated.”
I could tell Mike was really pissed off at me because he was making me work to get information. “Other than the ligature marks on her neck, are there any other bruises or signs that she struggled?”
“Bruises on her wrists, arms, and shoulders. Probably from when the killer zip-tied her hands together behind her back.”
Her hands were tied behind her back? That’s something you didn’t tell me when they took her body out of the water.
“Think they’ll get any DNA evidence?”
“They took scrapings from under her fingernails to see if they can get anything. Because she’d been in the water for at least twelve hours, I’m not sure what they’ll find.”
I took a final bite of the dumpling.
Mike said, “At least tell me how you found the pimp.”
I watched Caroline’s eyes widen and, with a sudden lurch of my stomach, I realized that she could hear both sides of the telephone conversation. “You have your snitches, and I have mine.”
“It would really help to have a list of the escort service’s clients. If Mindy Getz was a prostitute, then from what we can tell, she was probably working on the night of her death.”
That piqued my interest. I wondered if the poor girl had been raped. “How’s that?”
“Underwear. She wasn’t wearing panties.”
I saw Caroline blush.
“A lot of women don’t wear panties. I might not be wearing any right now.”
Caroline laughed out loud and clasped her hand across her mouth.
“The pimp told you that he wasn’t the one blackmailing Elliot Carlson?”
I purposely hadn’t told Mike the gender of the owner of the escort service. He’d just assumed that it was a man. “When the owner saw the video, they didn’t recognize the girl who has having sex with Carlson.”
“He could be lying.”
“Yeah, that’s possible. But I don’t think so. Hey, does the name Matt Boca ring any bells?”
“Is that who owns The Whisper Room?”
“No, but he might be a competitor. It’s possible that he somehow hacked into The Whisper Room’s operational system. Then he planted his own girl with Carlson and filmed them.”
I heard him scoff. “That’s a hell of a stretch.”
“Mike, I need one more bit of information.”
“What?”
“Where is Elliot Carlson staying?”
He chuckled. “How the hell am I supposed to know that? He made bail this afternoon. I’m surprised you weren’t there. There was a freaking media circus in front of the courthouse. We had to hustle him out the back of the building. His attorney was waiting to take him away.”
“Okay, who’s his attorney?”
“Dennis Russo.”
Russo was a bulldog criminal lawyer. When he was in a courtroom, he was relentless. He put on a good show, and I liked him. I was certain he liked me.
“Okay, thanks, Mike. Have a good evening.”
Mike interrupted. “Wait a minute, there’s dinner in it if you clue me in on who owns The Whisper Room. I really would like to get a list of their clients.”
“I’ll bet you would. No can do, but you can still buy me dinner.”
In my head, I could see Mike smile. “I thought you said you were seeing that John Stillwater guy.”
“I said that he and I were friends.”
“With benefits.”
I saw Caroline roll her eyes. I had purposely left the benefits out of my end of the conversation.
I gave her a guilty grin. “Have a good evening, Mike.”
***
I finished eating while Caroline told me about her day. Thankfully, she didn’t bring up the conversation she’d just overheard or talk about driving practice.
After she and Tucker went upstairs, I opened my laptop and banged out a story about my meeting with the owners of The Whisper Room and how they claimed they hadn’t blackmailed Elliot Carlson. I left out Stephanie’s and Lorna’s names, of course.
I also left out the revelation that the girl the cops had pulled out of the water had been an escort for The Whisper Room. And I certainly didn’t put Mindy Getz’s name in the piece. Her next of kin hadn’t been notified yet.
There are some lines even I won’t cross.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, after a run, twenty minutes of meditation, and a nice, hot shower, I sat in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and went online to see what I could find on Matt Boca.
